


forget-me-not

by thethrillof



Category: Secret of Kells (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:03:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethrillof/pseuds/thethrillof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aisling draws.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forget-me-not

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt "Muddle" from reka1207 on tumblr.

Aisling draws Brendan as he was. Before he had a beard and before he was so much taller. Before his smiles were edged with a heaviness and a happiness that she doesn't understand.

They're all out of proportion at first, because she hasn't drawn before. Head too big, no nose, too few fingers, but he's patient. He comes out into the forest as much as he can to teach her. 

* * *

Aisling draws pictures of Brendan smiling. She leaves them over where he's buried, in the clearings of her forest, in the mud on the banks of her rivers.

She makes them with lines and sticks or with her breath and her snowdrops, and she doesn't care what the humans think.

* * *

Aisling draws Brendan petting deer, she draws Brendan drawing, she draws Brendan holding her hand and running with her. She misses him, but talking to the drawings makes her feel better. It feels like he's really listening.

Maybe, by some miracle, he is.

* * *

Aisling draws Brendan, but she doesn't have inks. That's one thing Brendan couldn't teach her, not as long as she wouldn't come behind the walls, even broken as they were.

She furrows her brow and stares at the circles of his eyes, and wonders if they were really green like she thought she remembered.

* * *

Aisling draws on dirt and stone and asphalt roads. Her world shrinks, and she leaves things like flowers and wolves and a boy climbing trees with her. Sometimes the boy has curly hair, sometimes it's straight. Sometimes he has bangs, sometimes he doesn't. Her memories of him are muddled.

It takes her several tries to remember exactly who he was.

* * *

Aisling grows flowers and trees to replace the dying ones. She doesn't draw much anymore, but sometimes she traces the shape of a boy. A human.

She doesn't remember his name, but she thinks he mattered to her, once.

* * *

There are less trees, more cities. Metal and plastic and things with sharp edges. It hurts her in a way that Crom Cruach never could.

It's easy to find things to draw with. People drop pens and pointed things all the time. Aisling draws the humans and animals she sees. She sometimes gets the urge to draw something else, but she doesn't know what.

* * *

Eventually, Aisling stops drawing, focuses more on finding the pieces of her dying forest.

* * *

The world stops.

There are no more trees.

There's just Aisling, filled with so many memories her head might burst.

* * *

Aisling draws again.

She draws humans. And flowers, and wolves. Trees. The sun, the moon, the stars. She draws letters, and things that she called 'lions', although they looked little like true lions. She draws books. She draws everything, and it feels good, and it makes her cry.

Aisling draws a boy, and he looks right at her and smiles. He has short but messy red hair and brown robes and blue eyes.

And then there's nothing left in her head to draw.

She lays down next to her drawings, and she talks to them all. She ends with the boy.

She says, "I'm tired," and closes her eyes. Her last drawing sketches itself again inside her head.

He says, "Come on, Aisling! Everyone's waiting!"

She says, "Of course, Brendan."

They hold hands, and they run into a forest of everything together.


End file.
